iPhoto Movies don't play

Key question: how did you save your movies to the external hard drive?

What export settings did you use?

Did you try play the movies after exporting them?

I have the same issue. I exported my movie files from iPhoto 11 to my desktop, making sure to set Kind = Original. The files look fine on disk, but when I try to play them they appear to contain only 1 frame and have a length of 0. This applies to MOV and MP4 files. The file sizes look fine.

Luckily I can still play them from within iPhoto - glad I didn't delete them from my iPhoto library before I checked.

Update: The file sizes are way too small. I think iPhoto only exported the wrappers, not the entire videos.

Are you positive you used Kind = Original? Select one of the videos in iPhoto and use the File ➙ Reveal in Finder ➙ Original File menu option. Is it there? Then try an export again of that file to see if you can duplicate the problem.

If the problem is duplicated copy the movie file from the Reveal folder to the Desktop, create a new test library, import the file and try again. Does the problem persist?

OT

100% positive - I have duplicated the results a few times times. If I Reveal In Finder and copy the file it works fine. The problem is with Export.

Unfortunately I have ~900 files, so using Reveal on each one is not an option.

Unfortunately I have ~900 files, so using Reveal on each one is not an option.

Agreed. As a test launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import a couple of move files and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it?

The test worked. I was able to Export a video using Original from the test library and it worked fine.

Looks like your original library is damaged. Try the following:

1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.

2 - Run Option #4, Rebuild Database, followed by Option #1 if needed.

Thanks for the tip - I had high hopes on that one but after the rebuild I got the same results as before.

Looks like I can just drag them out of iPhoto onto the desktop and they work fine! Will see what happens if I try to do 100 at a time.

It works! Unfortunately some have duplicate filenames, and it only gives an option to ignore or replace. So now I need to work around that. Cumbersome, but getting there.

I just experienced the same problem. I'm exporting my iPhoto library all as "original" so I can move everything to Lightroom. I luckily didn't delete the iphoto library because I noticed every .mov file is now showing 0:00 with only one frame as a thumbnail on the exported files, yet the original in photo will play normally. I also can drag a particular file onto my desktop with success, but anytime I try to actually export using original or current, it does't actually export any of the video file.

What is the fix for this? I have over 20k files I need to export and I can't possibly go through and ifnd the 700 or so videos I have an individually drag them vs being able to utlize the export feature.

You can find the movies easily with a Smart Album:

File -> New Smart Album

Photo -> is -> Movie.

Then you can drag and drop those in batches. I wouldn't try 700 at one go.